Danie

Bluestar Linux: Arch Power, User-Friendly Polish “While the Linux universe is full of distros—314 active distributions, according to Distrowatch—there are arguably only a handful that strike a good balance between high performance and great aesthetics. One such distro is Bluestar Linux. Those coming to Linux from Windows or macOS will find the Plasma desktop environment to be a natural progression from their previous operating systems.” Personally, I'm quite hooked on a blend of an Arch based distro with a KDE desktop environment, so I found this option quite interesting. Arch distros are certainly getting more and more popular. My own days of distro hopping though have long been on pause, and I suppose I'll only hop again if something is very seriously bugging me on Manjaro. Being Linux though, any distro really does not stop you running anything made for Linux (and usually even for Windows), so don't think the default selection of software offered by Bluestar would in any way limit you. See https://fossforce.com/2025/07/bluestar-linux-arch-power-user-friendly-polish #technology #opensource #Linux

A fascinating listen into the power of Public Relations, and how it became another term for propaganda. Awareness should be the school curriculum. "In this episode we'll meet the godfathers of American PR, Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays, and explore the origins and evolution of industry-funded experts who shaped everything from the breakfast table to our understanding of the economy and science." Listen at https://www.spreaker.com/episode/s1-ep1-fake-experts-and-real-bacon--47148620

My Short Overview Video of the Ships at Sea Simulation Game Experience the thrill of navigating a wide range of ships. In single- and multiplayer modes, immerse yourself in tasks such as service, cargo transport, and commercial fishing as you explore the breathtaking open world of Norway's Islands and its stunning scenery. The ocean is within your reach! The game is still in early access (so you can expect some minor glitches and for features to still be rolling out) but it is playing perfectly well for me on Manjaro Linux with Steam's Proton compatibility layer. In this video, I show what I'm loving about the game so far, and why I find it so relaxing to play. This is not a detailed how-to or walkthrough of the game, but if you are curious about it and wondering whether to buy it, my video may give a better feel for what you can expect to see. Watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhDjGrTYEbA #technology #gaming #simulation #ships

Bluesky is rolling out age verification in the UK - No Way I Trust any Social Network with my ID I don't live in the UK, but my point just is that I would never upload my government ID to any social network. I don't even like having to upload it to government sites, as they have a tendency to get hacked. Seeing I do have unlimited virtual banking cards, I suppose I could upload a payment card, and just freeze that card. But again, there is no way I'm uploading any image of my physical bank card to any social media site. And I can imagine that this is where the trend will, go for all the larger networks. I doubt this will ever make it to networks like Mastodon, Nostr, and the countless other decentralised sites anyway (and who have zero revenue to fine anyway). For the many who end up being harassed online, I'd expect they will be only too happy to not do age verification, as it will mean maybe having more guardrails in place against online harassment. My point being, that younger users are absolutely NOT the only users who need protection and privacy online. This is a rather short-sighted view of social networks as it really only tackles the Big Tech social networks, and ignores everything else. It is also ignoring the fact that actually most adults also don't want online harassment. Users should choose their platforms wisely according to their needs, and if parents think platforms are not suitable for their kids, then they should be enforcing that or making their kids aware of the dangers. As this stands right now, there is zero friction at all to kids just choosing any of the other alternative platforms out there that are way worse when it comes to any protections. Even younger users should just not be on adult social networks at all. It is only parents who can judge how ready their kids are, and what sort of devices to give them to use. But yes, these laws will just go ahead regardless, and hopefully all the ostriches remember to pull their heads out of the sand, to just breathe once in a while. For the rest of us, we have lost and lost of options, so luckily no-one is ever locked into one single social network. See https://www.theverge.com/news/704468/bluesky-age-verification-uk-online-safety-act #technology #ageverification #socialnetworks

Jack Dorsey made an open source peer-to-peer encrypted Bluetooth messaging app called Bitchat “Twitter co-founder and Block Head Jack Dorsey launched a new peer-to-peer messaging app over the weekend called Bitchat that runs entirely over Bluetooth. Bitchat relies on Bluetooth Low Energy mesh networks to send encrypted communications directly to nearby devices without requiring internet or cellular service.” Don't be too concerned about the Bluetooth range as this app sets up mesh connections across multiple peers, much like how Meshtastic and Reticulum radio works. So, hopping across two or more peers will quickly extend this reach. Bitchat is working over Bluetooth LE and the claims are that distance between peers could be as much as 300m. Certainly, for line of sight such distances should be easy to achieve. The plan in future seems to be to include Wi-Fi Direct as another connectivity option. I'm wondering if this could evolve in future to work something like the Reticulum network, across all sorts of protocols. As with Nostr and other similar projects, Bitchat requires no account creation, no servers, no e-mail or mobile phone registrations, and also it has password protected channels, and even a panic mode that will clear all data in the logo is triple-tapped. Right now, it is working on iOS devices through Apple Testflight, and an Android client is still expected to be released in the near future. As this type of app is normally easier to released for Android, I'm wondering if it was not primarily intended right now to protect the privacy of protesters inside the USA. See https://www.theverge.com/news/701272/jack-dorsey-bitchat-bluetooth-messaging-app and the GitHub site at https://github.com/jackjackbits/bitchat #technology #privacy #opensource #P2P

I'm enjoying playing Ships at Sea on Steam Games I did a short summary with quite a few photos at my blog at https://gadgeteer.co.za/im-enjoying-playing-ships-at-sea-on-steam-games #technology #gaming #ships #simulation

CoMaps is a fully open source navigation app that works offline and doesn’t track users “Born out of governance concerns in Organic Maps, CoMaps has been created with a goal of restoring transparency, community control, and privacy-focused navigation. It’s a fully open source navigation app that works offline and doesn’t track users. A few weeks after the project began, CoMaps has officially launched with apps for both Android and iOS.” It will look similar to Organic Maps but some key differences (apart from the governance) are that remappable left button, and some choices to reduce display clutter. I noticed too, there is an optional (off by default) choice to use Google detected Wi-Fi hotspots for assisting in location. See https://news.itsfoss.com/comaps-launch #technology #navigation #opensource

French City of Lyon Kicks Out Microsoft “European countries have been growing increasingly wary of relying on Microsoft for critical government and public sector services. Concerns about data privacy, digital sovereignty, and potential governmental surveillance have led many to question the viability of depending on an American tech giant for sensitive infrastructure.” The point is, this is actually quite possible to do. Whether an organisation invests in its own people, or employs local companies to assist, it can be done. It is the marketing machine of Microsoft that convinces executives that Microsoft is so easy, that pays to certify installers and consultants, etc. The same can be done by governments, just like the UK government established their PRINCE project methodology, which all consultants and training companies were certified against. The same also goes for document formats. There is no reason to be stuck on .docx after so many governments committed to actually using ODF instead. Governments are not helpless, and can set standards to be complied with, and industry will conform if they want contacts. The big benefit for everyone involved is, anyone can freely download fully compliant ODF suites, and they do really work much the same as Microsoft Office does. I know this personally as I was part of a project to ready our own government to transition away from Microsoft in 2007. Yes, that never happened, but the reasons had nothing to do with the technology not working, or workers not being able to use Zimbra mail or LibreOffice. It was all politics and backroom manoeuvring around the IT staff. Such a change though does take guts and drive to implement, and the willingness of someone to stand up to the so-called “norm” of Microsoft. The world not only needs digital sovereignty, it also needs more competition and choices. Such choices do rest on having proper open standards for the formats of data being stored and processed. Vendor lock-in should be a major red flag for any government. See https://news.itsfoss.com/french-city-replaces-microsoft #technology #opensource #France #government

South Korea Brought High-Rise Fire Escape Solutions To The Masses “When a fire breaks out in a high-rise building, conventional wisdom is that stairwells are the only way out. Lifts are verboten in such scenarios, while sheer height typically prevents any other viable route of egress from tall modern buildings. If the stairs are impassable, or you can’t reach them, you’re in dire peril. In South Korea, though, there’s another option for escape. The answer involves strapping on a harness and descending down ropes hanging off the side of the building, just like in an action movie. It might sound terrifying, but these descending lifeline devices have become a common part of fire safety infrastructure across the country.” Interesting that the design works in both directions, so as one person descends, the other side is going up ready for the next person to descend. It is limited to 15 stories high, but it is real food for thought for skyscraper designers regarding better planning for evacuation of taller buildings. The fact is, things do go wrong, and what happens to the people up on 30 plus floors? Many skyscrapers also have sealed windows. It's a bit like planning for the ideal scenarios, and we hope nothing else ever happens. See https://hackaday.com/2025/07/02/south-korea-brought-high-rise-fire-escape-solutions-to-the-masses #technology #escape #fire

EasiShop is a South African comparative groceries shopping service developed by an ex-student from Cape Town "A former Fish Hoek High School learner is using his tech skills to help South African families stretch their grocery budgets. Tinashe Madanire, a 26-year-old student at Stellenbosch University, along with his co-founder Tendai Katiyo, launched a price-comparison website called EasiShop earlier this year. The idea? A simple website where users can track deals, build shopping lists, and find the best prices across major retailers.” This was something I've long thought we've needed. One place to put a shopping list of grocery items together, and then have the prices compared across Pick 'n Pay, Checkers, Woolworths, etc to find where it will be cheapest to buy. It is not yet going to be perfect, as many retailers also offer reward programs, personalised discounts, and many consumers also have additional kick backs through eBucks, GreenBacks, etc as well. Ideally, you'd want to be able to tick these relevant additional discounts too, and to also have Clicks and Dis-Chem added in future. But it is a great initiative and something that is certainly needed. I hope that it is going to continue to grow, and to benefit many local consumers. See the story at https://iol.co.za/capeargus/news/2025-06-24-how-a-former-fish-hoek-student-is-helping-families-save-on-groceries-with-easishop or website at https://www.easishop.co.za #technology #southafrica #groceries

I replaced my ISP router with OPNsense months ago, and I don't regret it at all OPNsense can also be fairly simple to set up if you go with the basics (like most home routers offer). But the great thing is you can also deep dive into it and setup separated VLANs and masses of tweaks and rules. What you need to know, though, is that you will need to run it on a separate piece of hardware (just like you'd have bought a router device) and ideally you'd want at least 4 Ethernet ports on it. The minimum is really two ports (a WAN port and a LAN port). My OPNsense device is a Protectli with 4 ports. One is a WAN port, and I have reserved another for a LAN port, and I have the remaining two ports connected as a LAGG interface to my main switch (so it has dual links for load balancing and redundancy). But again, you don't to do this either if you want to keep it simple. What I still want to explore with mine, is using the Haproxy plugin to do my reverse proxying directly on the OPNsense device, instead of in a container on my server. This will mean that some traffic destined for my OpenWebRx device can flow directly from the router through the main switch and to the OpenWebRx device (instead of via the server and then back through the main switch). OPNsense (and PFsense) does mean total control in your hands, and also ongoing updates and patches for many many years... See https://www.xda-developers.com/replaced-isp-router-opnsense-dont-regret #technology #opensource #security #routers

Steam Now Has an Overlay Performance Monitor “Steam has added a new performance monitoring tool to its in-game overlay, giving you information about how your games are using your computer’s resources. This should help you spot potential performance problems, although it is currently in beta. This tool shows information about FPS, CPU, GPU, and system RAM usage, making it easier for players to understand their game’s performance and fix issues.” Mileage may vary on this one, as I'm only seeing the FPS right now. For now MangoHUD works better for me, but if you don't have MangoHUD, this is better than nothing. The screenshot I've included shows MangoHUD at the top left, and the Steam performance overlay at the top right. See https://www.howtogeek.com/steam-now-has-an-overlay-performance-monitor #technology #gaming

WUD is a better alternative to Watchtower for Docker updates What's Up Docker (WUD) will notify you of updated Docker container images for installation, just like Watchtower can do, but WUD solves a number of challenges that I have with using Watchtower: 1. Shows a custom descriptive name for images, including database images. 2. This means no time wasted checking which image must be updated. 3. Updates can be run with the click of a button inside WUD. 4. Auto prunes the old images. 5. Can work with more than one remote Docker host endpoint. 6. Numerous notification services supported. 7. Can single-click to see image's change log. 8. Can optionally auto update docker-compose file with new image version. I demonstrate a number of these features, but I did not really go through the menus, as most settings are set using the environment and label variables in the Docker files for containers (which I do show in the video). Watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmuN8cown_4 #technology #opensource #docker #selfhosting

This is a good overview of how regex works “Regex is a pattern-matching language; it's a way to expressively describe patterns that match strings (e.g., words or sentences). For example, say you're searching your hard drive for an image called foo, but you cannot remember if it's a JPEG or a PNG. Many utilities make use of regex for searching, transforming, and interacting with text.” You won't be able to just effortlessly compose your own regex after just reading the linked article, but a quick read through will at least help put it in context. It also gives a feel of what regex can be used for. The reason regex persists after many years, despite looking very confusing, is that it is very powerful. With many GUI applications, you could well find regex running in the background to perform the more complex tasks. See https://www.howtogeek.com/get-started-with-regex-in-linux-terminal #technology #regex

OpenCloud is the lightweight Nextcloud alternative that runs on anything If you are finding that NextCloud is using too many resources, and just packs way more functionality than you need just for file syncing and sharing, then OpenCloud may be the answer. You are not going to have calendar, mail, chat, etc functionality with OpenCloud, but it also does not load a bunch of other services that NextCloud requires to run. It does have file sharing with passwords and expiring access, and interestingly it handles some basic tasks like PDF viewing on the client side. So this will happily run on a Raspberry Pi. See https://www.xda-developers.com/opencloud-lightweight-nextcloud-alternative #technology #opensource #filesharing

Steam's latest beta build makes gaming on Linux a breeze by enabling Proton for all titles by default Whilst you can still set a specific Proton version per title, for example maybe you want to use Proton GE, this default seems to default to Proton Experimental (from what I observed). This means all Windows games will now show as installable by default. I inadvertently tried this out about 2 days back when I installed Ships at Sea and just hit the install button. I thought it was odd at the time, as I had not set any Proton version for compatibility. Proton Experimental version is not the most stable version as it includes the latest compatibility patches, but I suppose what is nice about it, is firstly it will be the most compatible for most games, and you won't get left stuck on an older version of Proton either, as the experimental version is not fixed by any version number (it's a sort of rolling update). See https://www.xda-developers.com/steams-latest-beta-build-gaming-on-linux-a-breeze #technology #gaming #Linux

You could use an M2 SSD in a PCIe adapter instead of a dedicated M2 slot on the motherboard “If you've already stuffed the slots in your motherboard full of PCIe SSDs, you might be wondering what's the best way to add more. While you could buy larger capacities and swap them out, several manufacturers make PCIe add-in cards that can add one, two, or a whole bunch of M.2 NVMe drives to your system.” This looks like a very interesting option. My mother board only has two M2 slots, but the problem is when I use one of them, that eliminates two of my SATA connectors. Plugging an M2 NVMe drive instead into a free PCIe slot, could make a lot of sense. The linked article also shows what sort of performance impact this may have versus the dedicated M2 slot. See https://www.xda-developers.com/m2-ssd-pcie-adapter-results #technology #hardware #NVMe

6 Free Games With Hundreds of Hours of Content to Enjoy “With the era of $80 games upon us, free games seem more appealing than ever. But can a free game really give you as much value as something you paid for? Well, in the case of these titles, not only do they give you a ton of content, but they even outstrip many paid games in sheer value.” I've long been playing (and enjoying) War Thunder, and did not really know about Enlisted, so that may be something new for me to try out. See https://www.howtogeek.com/free-games-with-hundreds-of-hours-of-content-to-enjoy #technology #gaming #free

Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 battery life hammered by Samsung Health Monitor app I noticed about a month or two back that my Galaxy Watch was suddenly no longer getting its two days of use out a battery charge. I do keep my watch usage quite light, and normally have the Wi-Fi off, display set to lower brightness, etc, so 2 days is usually fine. I do use watch with the Sleep For Android app that monitors sleeping heart rate etc, and that does chew about 11-12% during the night, but that has been my normal usage. I thought at first maybe it is the battery ageing, but it is not even a year old yet. But checking the battery usage stats showed that the Samsung Health Monitor app (not the standard Samsung Health app) was chewing the battery by a good 3%, higher than any other app. Rebooting had not helped either. Seeing that app is only used for ECG, sleep apnoea and blood pressure, not of which I had used for quite a while, that app should be idling with no battery usage. I tried to delete the app, but it deleted off the phone but not from the watch at all. It would also not disable properly, nor could I turn off the background usage toggle. In the end, I used the ADB command to manually delete the app. And wow, now I have a full 2 days battery use again, plus a little extra. It shows again what impact badly behaved apps have on hardware. Ideally, this app should not be using any battery power if I don’t have sleep apnoea detection active, or if its parent app on the phone is deleted. #batterylife #samsung #technology

How To Check Disk Health In Linux: A Beginners Guide “Your computer's disk drive stores all your important files. Photos, documents, videos, and everything lives on your disk. But what happens when your disk starts to fail? You could lose everything. Worry not! Linux has built-in tools to check your disk health. You can spot disk-related problems early and save your data.” Smartmontools is a package on Linux that provides tools for monitoring and managing the health of storage devices—such as hard drives and SSDs—using the built-in Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T.) system found in most modern drives. But other tools are also covered such as badblocks, fsck, and the graphical user interface app GNOME Disks. See https://ostechnix.com/check-disk-health-linux #technology #Linux #diskdrives